St. Paul's three leading mayoral candidates taking part in a debate Tuesday night ahead of the November 4th General Election.
In the debate hosted by MPR News, current Mayor Melvin Carter, who is running for a third term, touted the city's approach toward crime.
"Because I do think that we've made significant progress in our city, and here we are today, celebrating the fact that we've seen double digit decreases in violent crime in every category of violent crime, that we have over a billion dollars in economic development underway," Carter said.
State Rep. Kaohly Vang Her, a former staffer in Mayor Carter's office, says things like drug addiction are making people feel unsafe on St. Paul streets.
"There are many, many people in our city who do not feel safe, and when we think about violent crime, as if that is all crime encompasses, it's just not true," Her explained.
Scientist Yan Chen, also part of that debate and said crime issues need to be solved with more than just law enforcement.
"If we don't know how to learn how to rehabilitate people, we will never solve the crime issue," Chen added.
The debate focused on a number of topics including crime, downtown, and rising property taxes.
Chen says the city must find efficiency in programs to reduce certain costs, like property taxes.
"During COVID, we're adding more programs," says Chen. "Have we asked our departments, what was the older program doing? Are they effective? We cannot just increase our budget through the COVID time, and without looking at the accountability part."
And despite the claims from Carter around economic development, Her says the city has stalled under Carter's leadership.
"I've been a huge proponent of tenant protections," says Her. "Rent control itself decreases our ability for businesses and for developers to want to develop in the City of St. Paul, but these are issues that we literally created policies which said, that we would not make ourselves as competitive as other cities."
Both of Minnesota's Twin Cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul, are electing a mayor this year. In both cases, voters will use ranked choice to elect a mayor. With this type of voting, you can rank up to three candidates for each office.
This method can allow your vote to count toward another candidate if your favorite candidate loses. If your first choice candidate is eliminated, your vote is moved to your second choice. If no candidate has the required number of votes to win, candidates that have the fewest votes are eliminated. This process continues until a candidate has enough votes to win.